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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Nach on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @03:38
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Which facts was he missing?
Well yeah, perhaps Nokia may want to use QTopia on their phones too, although they're currently not doing that. But in the process, it's probably good for their business to be the only one on the block with a stellar UI.
And heck, now that KDE Games have gone SVG, they'd look nice on their new phones :)
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Lee on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @04:54
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There's the fact Google's Android is a threat to Nokia, and so it makes sense for Nokia to embrace a similarly open source platform. Besides, phones are quickly becoming OS's, and OS/software vendors like Microsoft are quickly becoming phone developers. There are plenty of reasons for them to want to pickup things like Qt/KDE (with all their accomplishments, cross-platform support, nicer-(and, importantly, LIGHTER)-than-vista UI, etc.
Believe me, I've seen companies shoot themselves and their products in the foot enough to consider it a crime against the advancement of humanity, but it could be a good thing too. Time -- and only time -- will tell.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Anon on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @03:38
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Personal question, if I may: will you and e.g. David keep your jobs?
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Zack Rusin on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @04:07
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Of course they will. The open letter to the community that Lars points to in his blog explains the situation.
In short Trolltech commitment to KDE stays completely unchanged. Look at it from the very simple perspective: the amount of resources which Trolltech has at their disposal increases a lot due to the merger and that's something to be excited about.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by KOffice fan on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @05:03
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...for the time being.
We don't know what Nokia will feel like in a few years.
I'm not happy about this. It's one thing to cooperate with a small company composed of engineers, programmers, hackers and software lovers, and a completely different thing to have the very heart of your desktop environment controlled by a multinational behemoth involved with software, telecommunications and a million other things, which started off as a cable manufacturer.
I had a far easier time trusting Trolltech than I do trusting Nokia. While things will probably stay pretty much the same in the short term (or even improve due to new funds), in the long run I'm not sure Nokia will care enough about Free Software or KDE to stop them from hurting the community if they deem it profitable.
I'm not doing this to spread the FUD, I'm simply uneasy about this.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by matze on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @07:22
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well, I might add that small companies "composed of engineers, programmers, hackers and software lovers" usually aren't around for long. Those companies tend to go out of business quickly or become acquired by a "multinational behemoth". If they're lucky.
But still, I think you're mostly correct about the implications for KDE. We're no longer close to the Qt business model. KDE had a good leverage versus Trolltech because they knew well to thrive on KDEs success on the desktop. "Look how fancy things are done with our product". I wonder if Nokia cares so much...
Also I'm wondering whether the possibility exists of Nokia BSD'ing (or LGPL'ing) Qt, and whether this was good or bad. Clearly they don't need the turnover Trolltech achieves through Qt license sales.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by José Alarcón on Friday 01/Feb/2008, @03:37
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Well, companies have the obligation to bring revenues to their share holders. Both big and small companies. So I don't understand this romantic view of small company composed of engineers and SW lovers... if you don't want a company to control your desktop (I don't see how Nokia could do so), use a Desktop that is not based on any technology owned by any company (I don't know if that is the case with Gnome).
Nokia started by doing paper and rubber boots. I don't think it is easy to find a company that reinvent itself as Nokia does. I just think this is positive, specially when thinking about the resources and the market penetration nokia has.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by anony-mouse on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @03:56
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so let's consider the facts:
1.) Nokia hat a net profit of 2.8 billion euros in q4 2007; TT isn't profitable at this point (tho the turnover increases).
2.) Trolltech was a device-independent embedded software vendor iirc selling to Motorola as well.
(1) was clearly not the reason for the acquisition, (2) probably much more so. what will probably happen is that TT gets aligned with the Nokia business operations and then everything which is not up to the efficiency threshold (sales people might be affected) will get cut away.
this way, Nokia has an in-hour alternative to Symbian, keeps Motorola from benefitting from TT (or acquiring the company themselves) and a nice staff of engineers who can be assigned to whatever software development they do inhouse. and that's prolly going to be quite a bit in the future (since the profit margins with hardware are much much smaller than with software).
16NOK per share is pretty much (i'd need to look it up) the issue price btw, it's not like you're gonna make big money with that.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Sage on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @04:07
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This is a good observation. Most companies do not like to use a product developed by a competitor. This means that unless Nokia changes the license (to permit free commercial development by its competitors), Qt is quite unlikely to be used by other phone manufacturers.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Segedunum on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @04:15
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"Qt is quite unlikely to be used by other phone manufacturers"
I can't think of any instance where getting your competitors to use your platform is not a good thing.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by John Tapsell on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @04:33
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And what about using your competitors platform?
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Segedunum on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @05:50
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I see plenty of Microsoft's competitors using Windows.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Sage on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @04:35
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You miss the point - it's not in the interests of other manufacturers to use Nokia's toolkit. Simple example: what if Ericsson needs a change to Qt to work on its new device? They have to go rely on their competitor to make the change to help them, which of course Nokia has every motivation not to do - and, on top of that, risk pre-notifying their competitor of their new device's feature in order to get the change, giving up a major competitive advantage (first to market). Smart management just does not put themselves in that position.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Anon on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @04:47
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"They have to go rely on their competitor to make the change to help them"
Why?
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Sage on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @05:04
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In the hypothetical: assuming Ericsson does not want to open source its drivers and all its software, it has to use the commercial version of Qt / Qtopia, which means it can't make its own changes, which means it has to ask Nokia to make the changes for it.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Kevin Krammer on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @05:14
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> it has to use the commercial version of Qt / Qtopia, which means it can't make its own changes
This is a wrong implication. A Trolltech customer, i.e. someone who has bought a commercial licence, still gets the Qt code and is allowed to change it and distribute alongside their applications.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Sage on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @13:13
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Since I don't have (and Trolltech for some reason does not publish) their commercial license I cannot confirm your summary or whether it would be adequate. One inadequacy, e.g., is that this license might change, including that the license fees might go up dramatically or this right you refer to to make changes goes away. And as I have noted before, there is no secondary market in Qt licenses (e.g., buying an off-the-shelf kit at Best Buy), which enables Nokia to price discriminate (charge some customers more than others, or plain refuse to license to someone). All very unattractive features when deciding on the platform for a hardware device.
Can you post your Qt Commercial License somewhere and provide a link?
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Hank Miller on Tuesday 29/Jan/2008, @06:24
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Section 6 of my QTopia license states:
(a) modity the licensed Software as limited by section 10 below.
Section 10 seems to deal only with trolltech's rights to audit out process to ensure we have the correct licenses, but it does have the following statement: Licensee does not implicitly grant Trolltech any form of license agreement.
I won't post the full agreement, it is likely protected by copyright laws. I'm pretty sure my company doesn't intend to modify QT, so I assume the above is generic terms they grant to everyone.
I can't tell you how/if Nokia will change those terms.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Segedunum on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @05:52
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"You miss the point - it's not in the interests of other manufacturers to use Nokia's toolkit. Simple example: what if Ericsson needs a change to Qt to work on its new device? They have to go rely on their competitor to make the change to help them"
For starters, Qt is an open source platform, and secondly, I see few of Microsoft's competitors having a problem with Windows - and that's even worse.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Sage on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @13:17
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Qt may be open source but we are speaking about the commercial license.
As to Microsoft, at this point there is little choice for most people, but it's not at all analogous. A better analogy: Intel relying on AMD to write its microcode for its processors.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Segedunum on Tuesday 29/Jan/2008, @05:57
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"Qt may be open source but we are speaking about the commercial license."
So what? What is in Qt is what is in Qt. The open source version has the enterprise source code, and if you're a customer then you get the Qt source code as well.
"As to Microsoft, at this point there is little choice for most people, but it's not at all analogous."
Yes it is - certainly from what you're implying. These days Microsoft's competitors have no choice but to write software for Microsoft's platform and with their development tools, which means that Microsoft is first to market with everything. With Qt, that just isn't the case. If someone is really worried then they can use Qt for some things and not for others.
"A better analogy: Intel relying on AMD to write its microcode for its processors."
As long as they can get control over that microcode and write their own then it's not a problem and a pretty poor example.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by José Alarcón on Friday 01/Feb/2008, @03:41
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What?
LG Electronics
“We are anticipating the unique features and functionalities that the S60 platform will bring to our product portfolio and look forward to working in the S60 community. Our target is to build ubiquitous mobile devices that will best serve our customers. S60 on top of the Symbian OS will provide us with a compatible platform for our smartphones throughout our CDMA, GSM/GPRS, and WCDMA portfolio.” — Yong E. Shin, Vice President, UMTS Handset Laboratory, LG Electronics
Read more about LG at www.s60.com
Lenovo
“The S60 platform, as an open and industry interoperable platform, best supports our innovations and product differentiation. It will provide Lenovo with one of the most optimal software platforms in the very competitive Chinese handset market.”
— George He, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Lenovo
Read more about Lenovo at www.s60.com
Lenovo developer Web site
Samsung
“S60 is an ideal software platform for the advanced smartphones.”
— ByungDuck Cho, Senior Vice President, Mobile Communications R & D Team, Samsung Electronics
Read more about Samsung at www.s60.com
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by matze on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @07:49
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You're right: at IPO the price was fixed at NOK16/share. Which means that Nokia gets to acquire them at a bargain price now. And still its a generous offer, the shares were publicly traded at around NOK8 before Nokias stepped up.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Leo S on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @08:55
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>> TT isn't profitable at this point (tho the turnover increases).
What? TT is making a tidy profit. Not 2.8billion worth, but a decent amount.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by anony-mouse on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @09:08
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i've been following TT since their IPO and they haven't had a single financial report which stated that they were profitable. their turnover increased well (which is usually what counts) but still.
you can see it yourself in the q3 2007 report at
http://dist.trolltech.com/pdf/Q3finalreport2007.pdf
- 'The loss before tax was NOK 4.6 million in the third quarter 2007'
- 'For the first nine months of 2007, the loss before tax was NOK 26.1 million and the net loss after tax NOK 31.0 million'
i think it's crystal clear that this is a purely strategic acquisition and whoever says that TT can just keep going on as they always did except that they have a lot more resources plainly doesn't understand how businesses work at this scale (thinking about the comment of 'zack rusin').
TT is interesting because of a nice engineering division but after the deal it's entirely up to Nokia what those people are working on. if Nokia decides that the manpower is more useful to them when working on embedded stuff instead of KDE stuff, then that's the last word.
some people never understand when it's time to drop the romantic hacker mentality and realize what it means to be working for (and adjusting to the preferences of) a highly profitable and very tough global enterprise like Nokia.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by SadEagle on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @10:59
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I might be mistaken, but I vaguely recall TT being profitable pre-IPO. It certainly wouldn't be surprising to see a company that went public push for expansion and growth over immediate profits, given the infusion of capital the IPO produces..
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Aaron Seigo on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @14:48
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yes, acquisitions, restructurings and hiring is a bitch to the bottom line when using GAAP methods.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Leo S on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @17:22
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Huh. You're right. What the heck. I wonder why I thought that they were making a profit. That's... disturbing. When they were privately owned they must have made money, and lately they seem to be spending more and more, so I assumed they were in decent shape.
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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by Knut Yrvin on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @19:44
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The stock exchange Q3 report also says: Positive EBITDA[1] of NOK 0.3 million. Sales has increased in the period, the report says. This shows that Trolltech is heading for profitability after a period of heavy investment.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBITDA
When it comes to your "romantic hacker mentality" theory, science says something else. For years now researchers has studied the phenomena of free, libre and open source software. One such study is the Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Survey and Study. The study reports:
Learn and develop new skills, and share knowledge and skills are major motivations for free software developers. The study[2] shows that the free software community is a rather young and predominantly male community with a strong professional background in the IT sector and a high educational level.
2. http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/Final4.htm
Trolltech's relation to KDE are well known. At the KDE 4 launch Haavard Nord presented how the relationship was from Trolltech's part:
3. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2866967248993401461
Finally, Nokia embraces open source technology and will take further the open source development culture found in Trolltech. FreeQt foundation is being maintained to guarantee the continued freedom of the toolkit KDE depends upon. Chief Trolls and Nokia VP are now asking for ideas and comments on improving their relationship with the open source community.
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Smoke and Mirrors?
by The Badger on Tuesday 29/Jan/2008, @02:54
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"Finally, Nokia embraces open source technology"
News to Maemo developers, I'm sure.
"Chief Trolls and Nokia VP are now asking for ideas and comments on improving their relationship with the open source community."
Let's take a look at the first item on the agenda:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Nokia+software+patents
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